


the price we pay

by kreia



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2429207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kreia/pseuds/kreia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What comes after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the price we pay

No one called her by her name.

 

Not that anyone alive knew, but still, she missed the way it sounded when he said it: a promise of spring, a glimmer of something that almost tasted like hope. It felt more real than what they called her these days, anyway.

                                                                                                                      

She was many things to them: hero, champion, warrior, thief, and sometimes, spoken in the barest of terrified whispers –  _killer_. They addressed her with titles she knew she had earned, yet her heart was disquiet. She’d become nothing more than a spearhead used in a war she didn't think they’d win. She was unsettled as to why she should feel this way when it was her who decided to act on Uriel’s last request.

 

Curiosity, she decided, was what made her pull through. Enough curiosity to find out whether she was capable of changing the fate that was about to befall her in that cold dungeon cell. She'd gone to all crevices and secrets Cyrodiil had to give, after all, and made a few secrets herself. The old king fulfilled his promise of freedom, and more.

 

Still, it all came with a price – dallied out in blood, in silver, in gold. 

 

Uriel Septim was convinced that their destinies were intertwined, but she did not believe that, even then. Could never believe that. She just happened to be in the damned way. Dreams, she found, were as unreliable as the Daedra in their ashen planes.

 

The Hero looked at her hands, traced the patches where magic singed her skin, marveled at the thick lines of scars that rested uneasily on her palms.

 

She remembered a time when there were no marks on them, when they weren't sprayed with blood and viscera. She closed her eyes and tried to think of trees, snow, and laughter. Images of rotting corpses and the wastelands of oblivion assaulted her thoughts instead, and a vivid memory of light devouring a troubled man.

 

“M-my lady?”

 

The Hero turned to face the servant, not surprised at the girl’s nervousness. “Yes?”

 

“T-they are ready for you. M’lady.” The servant bowed and left.

 

The Hero sighed and slipped her gilded gloves back on. She made her way through the cavernous hallway, its path a winding velvet snake with seemingly no end. Palace guards stood on either side as she neared the monolithic doors. She could already hear the people cheering. Calling for their champion, for their savior, for her.

 

They forgot Martin. His avatar stood in the middle of the damn temple, barely days old, and they forgot. It was as if he never existed, but for that gods-forsaken day. He was now nothing more than a page in a history book, the last Septim, and the last of the _Dragonborn_. The thought made her feel cold.

 

Her heart did not hammer in her chest as she stepped into the sunlight, the crowd falling silent at her entrance. All stared in awe at the golden armor she wore; the golden dragon on her chest plate glinted, hard and cold in the late-morning sun.  _Martin was supposed to wear this. Not me. Not me._

 

Ocato spoke, then, lamenting on the future that Cyrodiil could have had if only Martin was alive.

 

“-and with the Champion by his side, they would have been the most powerful pair to ever rule our beloved Cyrodiil.”

 

She froze.

 

Ocat had not mentioned this in his speech when he first addressed it to the council, nor had he even implied that such a thing was possible, considering that nobody even knew who she really was. It made her realize how truly desperate the council was to save any shred of its former life, going as far as to tell lies.

 

The Hero wished that she’d worn her helmet to ward off the inquiring stares, but it was ruled against by the council, Ocato being the first to admonish her decision. Now she knew why.

 

She glanced briefly at the Chancellor, gave him a heated glare. He barely noticed, and continued speaking. Empty words. She thought it would never end.

 

After the speech was done and the names of the fallen were recited, the Hero began the procession, descending slowly down the steps of the tower. The crowd murmured in collusive conversations. She tried hard not to look any of them in the eye. She wondered what they saw in her scarred and weathered face. Was it grief? Anger? Guilt? She felt cold all over, her heart as distant as the stars.

 

A dozen Blades followed her lead. She thought of the Cloud Temple with its harsh snows and training grounds, the warm hall littered with occult books and _him_ , muttering under his breath as he paced... How empty it would feel now that they would never be needed again. Just like her.

 

A child stepped forward, red rose in hand, and offered it to her. He was a tiny thing, but all she saw was the child’s striking blue eyes as he spoke in a shy voice. “For you, hero-lady.”

 

She took the rose from the child, and gave him a warm smile. She watched as he ran back grinning to the crowd. The sharp thorns dug into her palm, the thick leather of her glove the only thing preventing her from bleeding.

 

More people arrive to witness the event, and the voices grew louder. The common folk threw roses as she passed by, and something akin to pride swelled in her chest, growing over the guilt like vines. Her armor was a shining light, divinity residing in the way the dragons molded in it gleamed in the soft morning light.

 

She imagined that Martin was behind her, that it was he the crowd clamored for, the one they threw their lovely roses for. Her vision blurred for a moment, making the roses look like they were a sea of blood. She blinked, grasped the one she held tighter to her chest. _Hero_ , the people called her as she walked, _Champion_ , names of savior spilling from their mouths in awe, but in her heart, she knew what she was - just another woman with too much blood on her hands.

 

And yet, _and yet_ -

_(“Why do you risk yourself so?” Martin had asked her once, after she returned from Miscarcand blood-soaked and battered. He had tended to her wounds himself._

_“Perhaps for you, my king,” she whispered back feverishly, her mind addled with pain and the heavy thrum of magic, and he looked at her with such tenderness that she had to turn her head away.)_

She looked at the multitudes of faces and wondered. The Hero never asked for this, but even she could not deny the hold she had on these people, both noble and common folk. Even with persistent whispers of her rather shadowy reputation she was still well loved.

 

She walked, and people fell to their knees to ask for her blessing. She walked, and great oblivion gates crumbled to ruins. She walked, and the world was hers for the taking.

 

She just wasn't sure if there was anything left to take for herself.

 

 


End file.
